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sweetpoison0011's avatar
sweetpoison0011
Seasoned Adventurer
26 days ago

DAtV - first impression.

Hi,

Taking in consideration that DAI, DAO, MEA, MELE offers about 70-90h/run I can guess I'm at the middle of the game.

What I did notice so far and points where I had my concerns:

1. I manage to create a character at my like without additional mods and without much headache having lots of tools and options to create pretty much what I wanted. Also the hair physics is awesome (best I've seen).

2. I had some concerns about the story and how the other DA games will fit. Big surprise to see that by choices and dialog options I continue the story from how I left it in DAI. I couldn't believe it can be done but BW shows that is is possible. Nicely done.

3. I don't identify myself with the main character (in any game) and I play like watching the story of someone else. I am please to say this is first time when I wasn't limited in dialog and what I would like Rook to say it is available. To give an example of limited options: Sheppard (ME1) confronting Saren first time there was no option to point out that he came for the artifact - ignoring the possible lead and the fact that I wasn't at first run. Well, in this game I didn't encounter any of this limitations. All dialogs are wrote so well that it covers about every aspect which fits my play style (if I have any).

4. Game surrounding: as a matter of facts I have zero insight on story, didn't accessed any spoiler or information about the game or characters, didn't watch any trailer or review. So naturally I appreciate the fact that in EA-App the achievements are hidden until unlocked. This is a nice touch. Sadly, the forum here is not so well protected as each thread is presented with a preview. I hope that will change for the better (not a complain, just an observation).

5. Leaving the best to the last: The story. Dear Bioware, I like to point out that the separation between mandatory quests and optional is not necessary. If it wasn't the tab separation between those I wouldn't even know which one is which. In RPGs which I enjoy the most, all the side quests were so well combined to the story that it was hard to notice. This game is no different except that the side quests have even better integration to the story. Again, I didn't think it is possible and, again, BW surprised me. So far I enjoyed every second spent after the game start.

6. Still in "the best to the last" category: Graphic User Interface. The customize options are excellent. I did disable and set for auto hide all elements for a better game play experience. In exploration there is a clear screen with no info whatsoever, in combat: minimal required - health and skill bar (with essential information about side effects), enemies health bar small enough but easy to read and understand the level of shield, armor, health, vulnerability and stat effect. I couldn't ask for anything better (well, I guess I could ask for total disable of hotkeys note on usable objects but I'll let that slip away).

7. Level design. That's another strong point of this game. I'm sorry that I don't know English well enough to express how pleased I am. I've spent a lot of time looking around and appreciate the view to the smallest details. Even better when companions comments about that too. Worth to mention, the upscale I use is Xess (DLSS: N/A and AMD FSR doesn't provide enough quality to match at least Xess -ultra performance) and NON-RT (RT providing better quality but feels fake). 

That is all so far. Promise to continue after another 50h of play or at the end of the run if it happens sooner.

Thanks for reading.

  • Incredible, Thank you for taking the time to share this with the community! Happy to pass it on to the team. 

  • EA_Illium's avatar
    EA_Illium
    Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager

    Incredible, Thank you for taking the time to share this with the community! Happy to pass it on to the team. 

  • sweetpoison0011's avatar
    sweetpoison0011
    Seasoned Adventurer

    Possible spoilers ahead.

    I know I said to continue after 100 hours or the game's end. Turns out I finish the game in about 100 hours.

     As final impression, this is a great game. There are however few things which I would like to have in game and didn't found and others which could have been done in a different way. For example, Rook's story is about a normal person compared to "Herald of Andraste". I was expecting some "fade touch" side effects from the starting events - like ability to activate and use of Eluvian mirrors (already in game but looks like any one can do that) and perhaps a fancy effect for shield or a fancy spell (ultimate skill could have been Solas' gift).

    Passing that, I jump straight to the parts which I didn't enjoy it at all. The use of real life terms in a fantasy game. Yes, I'm talking here about the Coffee. And of course, the social/political terms from real life artificially inserted in game. All this terms translated to Qunlat would have serve the purpose and would had a better integration in story (just my personal opinion). Qunari are known to have labels for everything (they have a label for labels as well).

    Getting now to what really matter to me: final impression. This game is a masterpiece in terms of graphics, animations, lip-sync (best I ever seen) for every single NPC able to talk and posses lips, hair physics (which I mentioned before), the combat very entertainment for my level, side quests that integrates perfectly in main story and, of course, the invisible part covered by scrips (programing). Didn't found a single bug in full run and didn't notice anything missing (textures, objects, animations, characters, sounds, lights or effects). Not only that but to notice the small changes every time when visiting a town, that is awesome.

    I can't say much about the romance because is not why I played the game and it wasn't something to hope for. As it should, it was optional and my option was to ignore it (no regrets so far and I don't feel like I missed something). 

    Now for the story, I have no idea what kind of dark magic was involved and makes me wonder if the story was written by my choices of dialog or I picked the lines as the game forced me to do it (scary but highly appreciated either way). Not a single line out of the place, not a single line forced, not a single line missing. I don't know how BW did this but looks like magic for me. Not to mention the fact that from very beginning of the game until the last bit it was one surprise after another (I made it till the end with no spoilers and no outside influence). Quite an intense experience from a modern game (didn't feel that since KotOR).

    So here I am after 100h of entertainment saying: Bioware, you made an excellent game. Thank you.